PayPal mafia

Early employees of PayPal, including Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, are known as the PayPal Mafia for their successes after leaving the company—and frequently invested in and supported one another financially.

Historical perspective: According to The New York Times in 2019, venture capital firms are hiring former employees of Uber, Lyft, Postmates, and Slack “to get a foothold in their networks” before those companies go public. They anticipate “a new generation” of startups will be launched by the companies’ newly enriched alumni. One former Airbnb employee recently raised $55 million to create “a fund to invest specifically in Airbnb employees” who were planning to become entrepreneurs. “It’s part of Silicon Valley’s often incestuous circle of life.”